Artists Spare Room | Ă…sa Larsson
I took the train from Sweden to Penrith in northern England to attend a week-long music residency at Eden Arts. It wasn’t the most practical or comfortable way to travel, but it was certainly the most interesting and leisurely. Watching the European landscape sweep by, hour after hour, gave me a chance to let go of daily obligations and instead sink a little deeper into myself and the moment.
When I finally opened the door to the spare room in the old fire station in Penrith, which would be my workspace at Eden Arts for the week, I saw a message written on a whiteboard leaning against the wall. It read:
Welcome Ă…sa!
Recipe:
Take one artist
Let them use your spare room
Put no pressure to produce
Allow them to make a mess
Give them somewhere to stay
Feed them well
Share ideas occasionally
Allow ideas to filter
See what emerges
I had two plans for the week. One was to make sound recordings of kulning (a high-pitched, ancient Scandinavian herding call) in various parts of The Lake District National Park. The other was to participate in Winter Droving, an annual festival organized by Eden Arts.
The first plan didn’t work out; Storm Ashley made it difficult to capture any sounds other than the roaring wind. Instead, I had a long-awaited opportunity to spend time finishing a song that had been lingering in the back of my mind for quite a while. And, as often happens, completing something created space for new thoughts and ideas.
The second part of my assignment was to participate in the Winter Droving, which Eden Arts has organized for thirteen years. It was an extraordinary experience. Seeing the small town of Penrith transform for a day into something that could have been a festive site from 400 years ago was remarkable. Streets and squares filled with circus performers, costumed dogs, jesters, music, dance, and song. In the evening, I joined the grand procession through town: a carnival parade of hundreds of people wearing masks, carrying large lanterns in the shape of various animals, with torches and music. My task was to lead the way, calling the procession forward with kulning in the same way my foremothers would have called the cows as they moved through the dark Swedish forests. It was a powerful experience!
After the long journey back to Sweden, I feel that the recipe on the whiteboard, combined with excursions to historical sites around Carlisle and Penrith, the landscape’s shapes and colors reminiscent of Sweden yet distinctly different, the insight into how Eden Arts works on its projects, and perhaps most of all, the many long conversations around Adrian’s dinner table with creative and wonderful people, have sparked new ideas and thoughts on how I want to continue with my art and connect it to my community here at home.
Eden Arts has truly found a great recipe with their Artist Spare Room residency!
A big thank you to all the lovely people at Eden Art for hosting me. Thank you Gunvor Göransson Cultural Foundation for helping make this journey possible. And a special thanks to Adrian, a wonderful host whose conversations I already miss.
